Darkthrone‘s second album, A Blaze in the Northern Sky, turns twenty-five today. For much of the mid 90s, Darkthrone constantly referred to A Blaze in the Northern Sky as their first album as it was the first commercially released record to adopt the quick and dirty “necro” production style and to have been part of the Norwegian black metal second wave initiated by Mayhem. However most of the individual musical inspirations were audible on their prior Soulside Journey album recorded at Sunlight Studio; the compositions on A Blaze in the Northern Sky were just much more sparse and droning due to different overall compositional goals reflecting the shift from progressive death metal riff mazes to minimalistic Hellhammerism.

The Celtic Frost influences on Soulside Journey are turned up to eleven and interspersed with the three-chord punk that influenced Celtic Frost so greatly. Riffs not rooted in these influences were often dissonant, bizarre but catchy things as if found objects from a more developed, dead civilization repurposed by primitive tribesmen as crude clubs for bludgeoning the brains out of wild animals. Nocturno Culto‘s complete lack of palm muting added emphasis to this. Celtic Frost provide the rhythms for the plodding verse-chorus riff pairs as in heavy metal that replaced the riff jigsaw puzzles. Fenriz‘s percussion was properly a simple alternation of snare and high hat cymbals interspersed with blasting and minimalist but well-used fills and emphasized hits that would be elaborated upon in later Darkthrone releases.

Darkthrone’s primitive compositions lulled listeners into a trance before violent tempo shifts and riff changes joked them back to the carnage of the real, natural world. This pace emphasized the passage of a life punctuated by series of calamitous and fortuitous events without leaving behind the 1980s proto-death/black metal musical context. A Blaze in the Northern Sky ultimately shows the band in a transitional period between the pinnacles of their career but stills provides a memorable, conventionally-constructed bridge into the uncanny creations of Darkthrone.

It’s just a dumbed down version of Soulside Journey. I guess they ran out of ideas, so they decided to make everything cheaper on purpose, dope it up with kooky horror movie schlock and claim to have “reinvented themselves” or some typical conman musician bullshit like that. A popular trick in Black Metal.

Doesn’t really hold water. Darkthrone, in particular, Nagell/ Fenriz came into closer contact with Asareth/ Euronymous after their first album was released who was an influential “Oslo metal person” at that time who was ‘less than impressed’ with their commercial success. Vikernes recounted that in one of his earlier videos. Fenriz then became a regular presence in Asareth’s shop and the style of the band changed under the influence of the former. Dead’s very graphic suicide presumably also made an impression here and the (as of this time still unreleased) first Burzum album.

Also, even you being right (“assume hidden ulterior motives” is a pretty hackneyed “reaction to anything strange”) wouldn’t matter. After creation, “work” and “artist” exist independently of each other and what the former will end up meaning to people encountering it doesn’t depend on ‘hidden’ (or any) motivations for its creation. “Artist not being ultimate authority for meaning of work” is not such an original idea.

Soulside Journey dumbed down SweDeath? As far as SweDeath goes its structure is more complex than just about everything outside of At the Gates and Eucharist. The album also had a great Autopsy influence.

A Blaze… repetitive? Especially considering the albums that would come after? Its basically a riff salad, which is my biggest complaint about it(and some of the stupid random rock riffs) Still a completely worthwhile albums

I think Soulside Journey is the only Darkthrone release that I’ve listened to in it’s entirety. All of these Autopsy comparisons make me want to revisit it, and give A Blaze in the Northern Sky a listen.

yes, I heard Soulside Journey a bunch of times in my life, and even had the Cd at one point in the late 90’s / early 2000’s, to see if I was missing something when I heard it in the early 90s.

All Darkthrone albums are decent and played by competent musicians, and nothing sucks, but don’t force yourself to like any of their albums because the funderground says it’s “cool”.
These maroons also praise shit like Blasphemy and Nuclear Death.